Critical Failure: Popular Music

Listen to Critical Failure: Popular Music

Critiquing music can be fraught: whether it was Miles Davis or Elvis Costello who said it first, ‘writing about music is like dancing about architecture’. Our first event on the art of music criticism focuses on popular music.

Led by Lawrie Zion, critics Chris Johnston, Clem Bastow and Mikey Cahill discuss the role of the modern music journalist - as buying advisor, social historian, cultural critic - and how it’s become about everything but the music.